VIRTUAL PC FOR Mac?

[OCOTILLO]

I am a switcher from Windows. I no longer have my PC (gave it away). I have some Windows software I would like to use. Specifically, Garmin GPS and DeLORME Topo USA. Neither of these have Mac versions. My Mac hardware is: Mac mini, 1.25Ghz, 512MB, 40GB HD, 20" Apple Cinema Display, BT keyboard and Mighty Mouse.

My questions are:

1. Is my hardware adequate to run Virtual PC?
2. Does it work?
3. Would it work better if I had an ext. HD?
4. Once I have it running, does it work like a Windows machine? That is would I install the Windows applications as I normally would on a PC?
5.Recommendations?

Thanks for any help.

[robbieduncan]

1) You will really want more RAM than that.
2) Yes It works!
3) An fast external disk will help a little, but RAM helps more.
4) It emulates a bare x86 machine. You need to install Windows on it to run Windows applications.
5) Recommendations? The Garmin GPS software works, but is slow (I use it sometimes too). If your GPS device needs a serial connection you will need a USB/Serial convertor with OSX drivers. Try Keyspan.

[greatdevourer]

1) No idea about the games, but if they're even vaguely recent (ie, last 5 or 6yrs) then no (M$ gave it software GFX only)
2) Yes, but oh so horribly slowly
3) No, not really
4) You install Winblowz onto it
5) Don't bother. You'll be better off with a cheapo £250 Dell

[MacDawg]

You will probably not be pleased with the performance in your case because of the type of apps you wish to run.

However, if you choose to go this route, consider using Windows 2000 instead of XP and read this article (http://www.nexle.dk/daniel/win2000-32mb/) and this thread to improve your performance.

You can also do a search on Virtual PC or VPC at this forum and find a world of threads already devoted to this.

Woof, Woof - Dawg http://homepage.mac.com/k.j.vinson/pawprint.gif

[OCOTILLO]

1) You will really want more RAM than that.
2) Yes It works!
3) An fast external disk will help a little, but RAM helps more.
4) It emulates a bare x86 machine. You need to install Windows on it to run Windows applications.
5) Recommendations? The Garmin GPS software works, but is slow (I use it sometimes too). If your GPS device needs a serial connection you will need a USB/Serial convertor with OSX drivers. Try Keyspan.
Thank you for your reply. If I can get up the courage to open my mini I will go to 1GB memory. My GPS is a Garmin Quest with USB. Unfortunately, I do not have a stand alone copy of Windows as the PC came with a restore disk only. After all. Bill needs the money.

[lisbakke]

I decided to use VPC as well. I wanted to run Visual Studio .net on it and I ran into 2 problems. #1 was that it gets an error code 1/2 way through the install.

#2 was that I have a PB 17" and the 512 ram wasn't enough. I knew I needed more. So I bought 2 gigs, thinking I would give winblows 1 gig and OSX 1 gig. It turns out (to my knowledge) you can only devote 512 megs to VPC.

[Abstract]

I plan on installing VPC 7 and MSN Messenger 7 so that I can video chat with her very soon.

Hope it works.